Goodbye to some firm favourites
Season closers always come with a wave of emotions as everyone prepares to say goodbye to all of their friends across the window. For some it’s a goodbye for good as series stalwarts finally hang up the gloves and Brands Hatch waved goodbye to no fewer than three of the most well-known shapes on the grid. The Mercedes A-Class, Audi S3 and Volkswagen CC all ran their last races in the series with each of their respective teams deciding it was time to call it a day with their aging chassis. It will certainly be a strange sight not seeing a CC on the grid in 2021 – with Nic Hamilton’s 2020 car, the second most experienced chassis in the field after Jake Hill’s Honda Civic, having been on the grid every year since 2013, and having been piloted by BTCC front-runners Alain Menu, Jack Goff and Aron Smith in their Team BMR days.
While the CC successes are a distant memory, and the Audi S3 enjoyed one victory in its six-year history with AmD Tuning and later Trade Price Cars Racing, the most successful car of the outgoing shapes is without a doubt the Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Having also been a new shape for the 2014 season, the three-pointed star visited the top step of the podium on 11 occasions with both Adam Morgan and Aiden Moffat behind the wheel.
And with that the BTCC is over for another year. Twenty-seven races in three-and-a-half months was always going to be a tough task for teams, officials and everyone involved, but they pulled it off with great aplomb. A huge congratulations has to be offered to not only drivers’ champ Ash Sutton, Teams’ and Manufacturers’ Winners BMW and Jack Sears Trophy winner Michael Crees, but to every single person involved in bringing some normality back to the British motorsport fan’s weekends. Hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy the tin-top action from trackside once again in 2021, but until then, we’ve plenty of highlights from a dramatic 2020 to keep us entertained across the winter.
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.